Halakha and responsa, heading a yeshiva
His way of study combined the Sephardic way, which excels in breadth of knowledge and deals mainly with clarifying the halakha, with the Ashkenazi way, which excels in sharpness and also deals a good deal with pilpul. In his yeshiva, like the Ashkenazi yeshivot, he introduced study by topics and sugyot rather than in the order of the Talmud.
One of the sages of Monastir in the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, a judge, halakhic authority and head of a yeshiva in Salonica and Constantinople, known for his forceful personality and uncompromising halakhic rulings. In Constantinople Doña Gracia Mendes appointed him head of the yeshiva she founded. His responsa, the Responsa of the Maharival, were printed in his lifetime, and they also include his novellae on several tractates of the Babylonian Talmud.
The archive doesn’t yet record Rabbi Yosef ibn Lev’s teachers, so the road to Sinai can’t be drawn yet.